A warm sky and a stroll along the Mekong riverbank are a natural end to the day in Vientiane, the small and relaxed capital of Laos. The only land-locked nation in Southeast Asia, Laos was once part of French Indochina but in 1975 became a single-party socialist republic. While Lao is the official language, forty per cent of the population live in Laos’ spectacular mountain ranges and belong to one of Laos’ 80 language communities. Many of these groups also live across the borders of the neighbouring nations of China, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar.

Throughout Southeast Asia local translation teams are making progress and ask for your prayers. One community is almost ready to distribute audio versions of Luke’s Gospel and is happy to have found a new team member who is fluent in 3 languages – a great asset to the team. Another language community is celebrating publication of the entire New Testament in their language in 2013 while continuing to draft the Old Testament. And a translation training centre is being built to facilitate training to all the new people becoming involved. See more prayer requests from Asia.

Photo: Ari Vitikainen | Words: Elyse Patten